


amity

by loupettes



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M, Friendship, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loupettes/pseuds/loupettes
Summary: A requested missing scene fic, where Rose asks Martha what she meant when she said"Oh my god, he found you."Set during 4.13.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	amity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArcadeYouthUnknown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcadeYouthUnknown/gifts).



Rose had almost forgotten the feeling of jealousy, at least when it came to love. _Martha Jones, former companion to the Doctor_. She’d been hopeful that perhaps she was an older companion, one before herself, because seeing her Doctor with another companion already stung. Knowing that he’d now travelled with more than one other - two women, no less- 

She sighed. She hated this side of her. Donna was gorgeous, accomplished, well-spoken and clever. Even on that parallel world of hers she never gave up, and when she did, she only tried harder to keep the fight going and make things right. But see, Rose had faced jealousy when it came to other companions but she could compartmentalise them, as it had never been with _her_ Doctor. But Donna _was_. A companion to the Doctor she knew and loved. And, by the looks of it, this bloody gorgeous, accomplished, well-spoken and clever Martha Jones had been too. 

_“Oh my god. He found you.”_

Rose shook her head, fighting back the prick of tears that had no right forming. She glanced around at the rest of the room; Mickey and her mum chuckling between themselves; Sarah Jane and Jack looking as though they were getting to know one another for the first time. Or was that just the way Jack spoke to people? The Doctor - well, the one she knew anyway - was running his sonic screwdriver over the new one, bouncing ideas off Donna as he did. Martha had separated herself to take a phone call and Rose had watched her, losing herself to her train of thought. Part of her wanted to quiz her, find out every detail of hers and the Doctor’s relationship: were they together; had they _been_ together; was she in love with him; was he in love with her? Her heart sank - was that why he was being so distant with her at the moment? Let her down gently. He’s moved on, found somebody new and Rose showing up on his doorstep threw a spanner in the works. She took one last look at the Doctor - the man she’d fought to get back to, the man she thought would hold her close and never let go of her again and yet now completely ignoring her - and, feeling the heat of rejection spread throughout her core, sniffed in annoyance at herself. _For god’s sake Rose, pull yourself together_. But then she saw Martha hang up the phone and look at the room too, before she caught Rose’s eye and smiled sheepishly. 

_Be nice._

Rose smiled back and waved awkwardly. They edged towards each other, meeting in the middle at the control panel. 

“Hi. Rose,” Rose introduced herself, even though she apparently already knew who she was.

“Martha,” she smiled in return. A lovely, warm smile. Genuine. Rose liked her already. 

“I, er, liked your thinking. Back there. With the key thing.”

Martha laughed nervously. “Thanks. Although I’m glad I wasn’t called out on my bluff. Would have been quite the statement to put on my CV for my time working for UNIT, eh?”

_“‘Martha Jones: wiped out the Earth’.”_

“I’d only really be able to get a job with the Daleks after that.”

They laughed, more relaxed now and with softer eyes. Rose _really_ liked her. But, as is what often happens when two people who are meeting for the first time run out of things to say, their smiles weakened. They both stood in place, though. Neither really wanting to end the conversation. It was Martha who kept it going. 

“So,” she looked nervous, but she did well in keeping herself focused, “how long have you been back on this world?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh! Sorry, the Doctor mentioned you were living in a parallel world. I just… wondered how long since you got back.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry.” Rose tried to moisten her lips as she felt her mouth drying. “Actually, not that long. I, er, developed this dimension canon thing, started working when the Daleks weakened the barriers. After a couple of test landings, I finally made it to this one really only a few hours ago.”

“A few _hours_?”

“Yeah. Don't seem that long when you put it like that.”

A pause. “How’s the jet lag?”

Rose took a second to compute the words before she started giggling, Martha giggling in relief when she did. Before they could lapse into another silence, Martha interjected. “Hold on, _you_ finally made it?” 

“Leave it up to the women to do the hard work, right?” she joked emptily. Martha’s eyes grew narrow in confusion and Rose spoke without thinking, a question she’d been wanting to ask since she'd heard her say it. “You thought he was the one to find me?”

“Well, yeah. Sorry, I guess I never thought - shit - not that I didn’t think you _could!_ Oh God-“ 

“-Oh no, no course not! No, I know what you mean, don’t worry.” Rose shook her head firmly while Martha continued to look at her awkwardly, expectantly. “Well, actually, I don’t. What do you mean?” 

“I just... he spoke - I mean, it was him. It’s _the Doctor_. I thought he’d finally done it.” 

“Done what?” 

“Found his way back to you.” 

“What, he was _trying_ to?”

“Didn’t you think he would be?”

“No!” 

She realised she’d said it quite forcefully; she tried to soften her approach when she saw Martha’s eyes widen in defence. 

“I thought, I don’t know I mean, I thought you and he were-” 

“Why’d you say that?” 

“I didn’t mean to step on anything I’m sorry-“ 

“No! No, it’s fine you didn’t. I mean. We weren’t-“ Rose scrunched her eyes shut, taking a deep breath before trying to calm herself. The conversation was jagged, awkward and it _shouldn’t_ be. She didn’t want it to be, she didn’t want to make things difficult or uncomfortable. By the time she opened her eyes, it looked as though Martha had felt the same, looking back at her apologetically. They smiled at each other awkwardly, warming only once they saw the other's warming in return. And soon after, they began to giggle, shaking their heads at themselves and their bashfulness. 

“God, sorry,” Martha said after a minute or two, her eyes kind with a refreshed sense of kinship. “I never thought I’d meet Rose Tyler.” 

“Oh dear - _Tyler_. You’re full-naming me.” 

“Well, it’s true!” Martha chuckled. “Rose Tyler. Here, in the flesh.” She opened her arms, gesturing to Rose with a smile of disbelief. She watched her closely, her bravery strengthening and she cleared her throat. “Listen, I know that, if it were me, I’d have been burning to ask these questions too.”

Rose’s heart sunk. Although, she wasn’t sure why. Martha must know by now that Rose was in love with the Doctor, just by the fact that she knew who she was. He must have told her somehow, that his previous companion fell in love with him. Although, that didn’t sound very much like something the Doctor would do: ‘y _es, my last companion, her name was Rose Tyler - that’s T-Y-L-E-R_ _, fell in love with me_. _’_

So then _,_ how _did_ she knew about her? Rose ran the different scenarios quickly through her mind: perhaps he'd told Martha about his past companions - maybe he’d learnt from Sarah Jane and Rose’s encounter that it was best to be upfront... but then he'd have still had to tell Martha how Rose felt? Ok, maybe they were going through past relationships because they _were_ in a relationship and they were talking about past loves; maybe he’d even mocked her, talking about his old companion he just couldn’t shake-

Rose shook the negativity out of her head. And then, she looked at Martha standing opposite her, with such kindness written across her face, and she realised she could… ask. “How’d you mean? Did he tell you about us?”

“He didn’t need to, but I pieced it together. Never said much himself though, other than that you were together.”

“ _What_?”

Martha jerked her head back in confusion. “Were you _not_?”

“No!”

“Cheeky _git!_ He fancied himself as a romancer, he did!”

“Could have just stopped at ' _he_ _fancied_ _himself'_.”

“Now _that_ is true.”

They giggled, the air lightening once more.

“Sorry,” Rose fiddled with the hem of her t-shirt. “I don’t know how much he told you about me or us or whatever, but he never told me anything. In fact - he was about to, but then - and I’m not being ironic when I say this - he ran out of time.”

_“No way!”_

The voice came from behind Rose, although it had made Martha jump too. Rose spun around to see Donna, enough steps away that she wasn’t part of the conversation but not too many to not be able to overhear. And, by the looks of it, she’d been listening in for a while. She held her hands up in apology at their surprise. “So sorry ladies, did _not_ mean to interrupt but I couldn’t let that one pass - did you say he _ran out of time_ to tell you how he felt?”

Martha smirked. “That’s a new one I haven’t heard before.”

“Right!” Rose chuckled, genuinely, shifting a step to invite Donna to join them. “Imagine how _I_ felt, stood there pouring my heart out, trapped on this parallel world and all that and he-“

“Leaves you on read?”

They laughed loudly, their arms reaching out to the others'. “Well, then! Maybe _that’s_ why he was so determined.”

Rose’s smile began to fade. “How’d you mean?”

“Well,” Martha glanced at Donna, “I don’t know about you, Donna, but when I was travelling with him - he’d never say it, never admit to it, but I caught him, y’know.” She glanced over at the Doctor, before turning her attention back to Rose and lowering her voice. “Searching. For a way.”

Rose continued to watch her; her expression must have been confused because Martha expanded. “I’d find him writing calculations and equations down and stuff. Whenever I’d ask him about it, he’d always shrug it off. ‘ _Doesn’t matter_ ’, and all that. But then I started finding books about alternative dimensions, I didn’t put them together until I heard him and Jack talking about you being trapped.”

“See, he told me about Rose quite early on, what had happened to her, you know.” Donna looked back at Rose. “I met him very soon after and he wasn’t even able to say your name out loud. Course, I run into him again and it’s on my mind, the last time I saw this bloke he was head over heels for someone he’d just lost, so I ask him about it again. Did he ever find you? Was he in a better place? He eventually told me about what had happened, that you were living in another universe and all that. The way he spoke about you... I don’t know why I always assumed that you’d decided to leave yourself. It was only when he told me that you _couldn’t_ come back that I realised you didn’t want it, too. See, I’d get these parallel worlds sort of always converging around me - makes sense now obviously - but every time it would he’d really quiz me about it. Write it all down and that, and I never really knew why or what for. But that’s cos I thought he wouldn’t be trying - once I realised neither of you wanted to be separated, it made sense that he was trying to fix it and bring you back to this world.”

“Wait, what? You met him twice?”

“Oh yeah! Think I might have met him very shortly after he lost you. He flipped his lid when I asked about your purple top - which he still has, by the way, might wanna get that back - and I learnt very early on that the name ‘ _Rose_ ’ was a no-go.”

“Hold on,” Martha spoke quickly, “he told me _I_ was the first person he travelled with after Rose?”

“Blimey, right little womaniser, ain’t he!” Donna chuckled, and Rose resented the sting of jealousy at her words. “Na, I actually met him twice. Once on my wedding day - don’t ask, long story - and then again a few months later.”

“I never knew that!” 

“You must’ve done him a world of good though, he was a right mess when I first met him.”

“You say he was a mess _before_ he met me?”

Donna nodded. “Complete waste of space. He saved the world, maybe, but nearly drowned in the process. Honestly think he would have been quite happy to that day.” Donna paused, rolling her eyes and sighing. “Once again, the ladies come to the rescue and the man takes the credit.”

“Story of my life.”

Martha nodded slowly. “Well, I didn’t exactly help matters, then. Thinking he was the one to put the effort in to find you. Course it was you to find him.”

Rose laughed emptily, then sighed. “I just... oh, I don’t know. Didn’t even think he’d look. Time Lord and all that. _Obligations_.”

“You’re having a laugh - ”

“- Na, no way!” Donna waved her hand dismissively. “To be honest - I might have agreed with you - he _is_ a bit high and mighty, isn’t he? But I’ve seen him get so angry at the universe that he’s done things he shouldn’t have - wonderful things, don’t get me wrong - like saving innocent people who should technically be dead, that sorta stuff-“

“But he’d never do those wonderful things for himself,” Martha finished.

“Right!”

“So that’s why I was surprised when I thought he’d finally done it,” Martha admitted, and Donna gestured with her hand in agreement. “Though not completely, because I’ve seen him _almost_ do it - almost let his anger and grief get the best of him. Always thought it’d only be a matter of time before he finally let it.” 

Rose had been listening to every word with extreme intensity but hadn’t yet been able to process them, to attribute feeling and understanding to their sound. Martha and Donna were nodding their heads absentmindedly, gazing elsewhere as they let their thoughts take charge of their attention. She tried to picture it: the Doctor, not only not moving on, just as he always did, and not only entertaining the thought of finding a way to her, but _actually_ looking into it, _actually and actively_ trying to finding a way to her. 

She must have been showing her scepticism when she caught Martha looking back at her with a smile on her face. “Like I said, if it were me, I’d have wanted to know: that man’s _in love_ with you.”

“Oh, _helplessly._ A completely lost cause.”

“Looks like there’s even two of ‘em now, too.”

“God help you.”

Rose glanced over at the two Doctors. She wanted to believe them, really she did. She knew, deep down, that he was in love with her. But the fact that he never finished his sentence always toyed with her, manipulated her version of the truth. She always thought perhaps he’d tried to stall, making awkward conversation - she’d replayed that conversation over in her mind too many times to count and every single one she couldn’t imagine him saying those words. And so, as time went on, she became even more confused, the doubt in her mind growing and taking over what her heart believed to be real. So she didn’t believe Martha nor Donna here now, either. Because _he_ hadn’t said them. To her.

“Has he ever told either of _you_ that?”

Martha and Donna looked at each other, eyebrows creased together in confusion. Rose chewed her bottom lip, very aware of how much she sounded like a silly 14-year-old behind the gym on a break between lessons gossiping about boys and who fancies who. But, if there’s one thing everything over the past few years had taught her: it was that things needed saying; questions needed asking and it didn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, how they were said, nor how they were asked. All that mattered was _them_. 

“Didn’t need saying.” 

**Author's Note:**

> requests or prompts welcome @[loupettes](https://loupettes.tumblr.com/submit)


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